


and i said to my body, softly

by shellybelle



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Casual Heterosexism, Gender Identity, Genderqueer Character, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Dysphoria, discussions of gender preference and dating preference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 07:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11550624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellybelle/pseuds/shellybelle
Summary: The bottle calls the color “Amore at the Red Canal," and Nursey picks it up on a whim at CVS.





	and i said to my body, softly

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 4 of NurseyDex Week 2017 - "Gender/Sexuality Headcanons"
> 
> See the end notes for content warnings.

 

"and I said to my

body, softly.  _'I want to_

 _be your friend.'_ it took a 

long breath and replied,

_'I have been waiting my_

_whole life for this.'_ " 

(Nayyirah Waheed)

 

The bottle calls the color “Amore at the Red Canal.”

 

Nursey picks it up at CVS almost on a whim, when he stops in to restock on toothpaste and get a new nail file--he lost his on a roadie--and the color catches his eye. It’s not his usual shade at all. When he paints his nails (only his toes; Samwell’s an accepting place, but there are enough assholes around that he’s not ready to put himself all the way out there), he tends to go for paler shades: usually pastels, gentle lavenders and pinks and yellows, soft colors meant to soothe him the itching under his skin when he goes too long with a beard on his cheeks.

 

But the red makes him stop, makes him hesitate. It’s not a cherry red or a fire-engine red or anything like that; it’s a deep, almost burgundy shade. Nursey’s had wine this color, has sipped it at dinners with his moms and at fundraisers with his dad, has felt the way it settles warm and thrilling in his veins.

 

There’s something seductive about it, and he knows that’s a tired old trope, but he runs his thumb over the side of the bottle anyway, and then tosses it into his basket with his toothpaste.

 

He doesn’t put it on for another two weeks. He’s alone in the Haus--Bitty’s visiting Jack in Providence, Dex is at study group, C’s over at the SWV house with Farmer, and Ollie and Wicks are off doing who-knows-what in Boston. He likes it best like this, when the loud, rambunctious space becomes quiet, and he can put music on his laptop and light a candle and just...be.

 

Painting his toenails is easy habit at this point, sitting on the floor of his and Dex’s room in his boxer briefs and a sweatshirt he’s like eighty percent sure he stole from Holster at some point, it’s a little big on him and there aren’t too many guys he knows who have to buy clothes at a larger size than he does. It’s a crew neck, loose around his shoulders, and it makes him feel...not delicate, really, he’s pretty sure he’d be hard-pressed to ever find something that makes him look the way he feels sometimes, but surrounded, protected.

 

The color goes on smooth, and he pauses after two toes, thoughtful. It would look sultrier on someone white, he decides, dipping the brush again. He doesn’t really mind that--the subtlety is nicer. His manner of sexy has never been about in-your-face color anyway. It’s always been about the long game, heat building over the course of an evening (or longer, he thinks, swiping a missed drop with the corner of his thumbnail), gentle touches and murmured verse and grins from under his eyelashes.

 

(He’d hated how long they were, as a kid, the way adults always cupped his cheeks, told him he was such a _pretty_ child. Now, he doesn’t mind so much. Some days, they keep him from wanting to crawl out of his skin.)

 

Finishing the second foot, he pauses, stretching his legs out in front of him to look at the color. It’s pretty. Not as femme as he’d thought it would be--almost less than the pastels he usually goes for, which are more obvious, brighter against his skin.

 

He looks at his hands, and... _thinks_.

 

Putting it on his fingernails would be a statement. It would be _this is a thing I do, and I want you to see it_.

 

 _You_ , he thinks, and huffs, tapping the bottle against his thigh. He’s just bullshitting himself, he knows it’s a specific _you_ these days.

 

And that’s…

 

Nursey closes his eyes, tilts his head against his mattress. This _thing_ he has for Dex _isn’t_ holding him back from talking about this gender shit--whatever name he eventually finds to call his gender shit, he’s yet to find a label that works for him; the one time someone had actually asked him outright (Lily, from his poetry workshop, who’s his peer editor and sees all the rawest shit he writes), he’d just told her that he kind of just stares into the void and hopes the void’ll spit something back--but he can admit it’s a factor. Because he’s _into Dex_. Has been since way before they moved in together. He likes how passionate he is, the attention he pays to every detail of his life, his confidence in his skills, the surety with which he’s grown into himself over the years.

 

(And he’s fucking _gorgeous_ , all that height and the freckles and the eyes and the strong, work-callused hands and the spread of his shoulders under those well-loved flannels, like, fuck, Nursey is fucking _victimized_ by the fact that they share a room now, it is a _problem_.)

 

But at the end of the day, Dex is gay. Dex likes guys--likes men. He’d said “I don’t know, it would depend on the person, I guess,” when they’d gotten high in the Reading Room last season and Nursey had asked if he thought he’d date a trans guy. They’d talked about masculinity, about Dex’s baking and the shit he takes for it back home, and Dex had blown out smoke, shrugging his shoulders.

 

“I’m attracted to guys that are...I don’t know, that I wouldn't be worried about breaking, y’know?” he’d said. “I mean, yeah, I bake, but like, I’m not…” He’d trailed off. “I’m trying to think of a way to say this that doesn’t make me sound like a dick, but Bitty’s not my type, you know what I mean?”

 

Nursey had taken the joint from him, his fingers tingling where they’d brushed Dex’s. Inside his socks and sneakers, his toenails are painted a lavender that his sister had picked up for him the last time she was in Paris. He’d done them two days earlier, when he’d woken up and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror, broad shoulders and three days worth of stubble, and had wanted to get back into bed and not get out until he looked like someone different. “But what a guy does, how he dresses,” he’d said, carefully, testing the waters. “It’s not more important than, like...who he is? Him as a person?”

 

“I dunno.” Dex had shrugged again. “Like I said, it depends on the person. If it was someone I already knew, it’s probably different than someone I just met. You gotta--you gotta have that _zing_ , you know? I don’t think I’d ever get with a guy who--a guy like Bitty.” He’d glanced at Nursey, then, his expression almost amused. “I can’t tell if you’re judging me, or fishing to wingman or set up my Grindr profile.”

 

Nursey had laughed, taking a drag from the joint, because it was easier than saying _neither_. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he’d said instead, and then Shitty had climbed through the window and demanded they share, and the topic had turned to Lardo’s senior art showcase instead.

 

They haven’t talked about anything like that since. The few guys Nursey’s seen Dex wheel at kegsters have been athletes, with fashion sense closer to Jack or Holster than Nursey, and when Dex comes to practice the day after a hookup, it’s always with visible marks on his skin, the marks of strong hands and tight grips, and that’s--that’s not Nursey’s thing, rough and biting. He doesn’t mind a little of it, from time to time, but he likes soft, he likes tender. He likes to be treated gently, to give that back in return.

 

He sighs, picks his head up, and opens the nail polish. Fuck it. He might as well just accept he’s not Dex’s type and start getting over him. Drawing the brush over his fingernails with careful strokes, he considers picking someone up at the next kegster, someone who doesn’t mind a guy who pairs red nails and a deep v-neck, long lashes and stubble. Maybe he’ll go all out, borrow Farmer’s eyeliner. She’s got a gold that she’d used on him once, when they were just fucking around, and told him he took her breath away.

 

Yeah, okay, he thinks, finishing one hand and switching to the other. He can do that. Because fuck it, right? If Dex wouldn’t want all of him, then he doesn’t _really_ want any of him, so--

 

“Oh,” Dex says.

 

Nursey snaps his eyes up. Dex is standing in the open door of their room, his eyes wide as he stares at the nail polish in Nursey’s hand. He doesn’t look grossed out, or disturbed, or anything like that--there’s a slight flush over his cheeks, but he just looks...surprised? Nervous? Nursey can’t read his expression, and it freaks him out.

 

Briefly, he considers making a run for it, but his nails are still drying, and, well. You don’t fuck with that before a top coat. He takes a deep breath, and goes for casual.

 

“Yo,” he says. “You here to join spa night, Poindexter?”

 

Dex snorts, rolling his eyes, and that’s good, that’s familiar territory. “I don’t think so,” he says. He comes in, puts his backpack down, and then, to Nursey’s surprise, sits down on the floor next to him, peering down at Nursey as he starts putting a second coat on his left hand. “So, I, uh.” He nods to Nursey’s nails. “This is a thing you do?”

 

Nursey does his best not to tense. It’ll make his hands shake, and he doesn’t want to go scrambling for nail polish remover if he starts fucking up. “You know it is,” he says, as easily as he can. “I know you’ve seen my feet, dude.”

 

“Feet are gross,” Dex says immediately, and Nursey laughs.

 

(They have talked about Nursey’s toenail painting, exactly once. It was freshman year. Dex had said, “uh, dude, the fuck?” and Nursey had said “gender is a white concept and nail polish is for everyone, get over it” and then Chowder had very loudly suggested that they talk about the booming population of geese on campus and hey, isn’t that really concerning for all of our well-being?

 

Chowder deflects like a motherfucker. It’s probably what makes him such a good goalie.)

 

“But like,” Dex continues. “You don’t usually do your hands.”

 

“Felt like it,” Nursey says, because that’s easier than saying _I’m having a gender identity meltdown and decided I had to get over you because you don’t like guys that bend like I think I want to_. “And I liked the color, so.”

 

Dex is quiet for a moment. “Can I?”

 

Nursey glances at him. He’s motioning toward the bottle, and Nursey purses his lips, but finishes his pinky and screws the top back in, passing it over. Dex studies it for a moment, looking thoughtful.

 

“It’s nice,” he says, after a few long seconds, while Nursey’s heart pounds out of his chest. “It’s, uh. I like how deep it is. It’s not, like, Samwell red?”

 

“Classy escort red,” Nursey says, though that wasn’t what he had thought. The color had made him think of the trip to Milan he took with his whole family his junior year in high school, his ammi and mama and his dad and step-mom and Farah and his half-sisters who will always be _the girls_ in his head no matter how old they get. They’d walked around at night and the streetlights had painted the old buildings in shades of red and gold, in opulence and glamor.

 

“I don’t think so,” Dex says, his voice quiet, contemplative, taking Nursey out of his train of thought. “It is classy, though. And it--it looks good on you.”

 

Nursey opens his mouth to thank him, and then pauses. He looks a little closer. Dex’s cheeks are red, and he’s not meeting Nursey’s eyes, and…

 

Oh, he thinks, and relief, or maybe something like joy, blooms in his chest. _Oh_.

 

“Thanks,” he says. It comes out in a whisper, and he swallows. “I was thinking that--” Fuck it. If he’s in, he’s in. “Farmer’s got this gold eyeliner, you know? I thought I’d try that, at our next kegster.”

 

Dex’s lips part, and his hand tightens, just barely perceptible, around the bottle. “I think you’ll--” He breaks off, and laughs, a little breathless. He holds the bottle out for Nursey. “I think half the room won’t be able to take their eyes off you.”

 

He holds out the bottle, and Nursey takes it, careful of his nails, still glistening. The red is brighter where his fingers brush Dex’s pale skin. “How about you?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

 

“What about me?”

 

Nursey puts the bottle down on the floor. He doesn’t break eye contact. “Where are you gonna be looking?”

 

Dex holds his gaze. His face is red, but his eyes are clear, and steady, and _fuck_ , there’s that confidence, that weakens Nursey’s knees every damn time. He curls a hand around Nursey’s wrist, strong fingers, a gentle grip. His thumb brushes over Nursey’s pulse point, soft and feather-light.

 

“I’m gonna be looking where I’m always looking,” he says, and Nursey’s heart stops. “I’m gonna be looking at you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: insensitive language regarding gender presentation of dating/sexual partners in the "not malicious but still not cool" sense, vague descriptions of gender dysphoria
> 
> you will pry genderqueer!nursey out of my _dead, cold hands_. 
> 
> nursey's nail polish color is [here](https://www.opi.com/nail-studio#nl=0&st=48&p=NLV29). i did, in fact, see it in a cvs once and go on a mental trip to the last time i got jazzed up and had a really good red wine. nursey's last really good wine was probably fancier than mine. i don't hold it against him.
> 
> feels? hit me up on tumblr! @geniusorinsanity


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